In Pakistan, achievement, success and possession of an innate ability to salvage national pride all seem to have an uncanny relationship with the surname ‘ul Haq’. While the English translation of the word haq is an elusive concept in the democratic polity and legal parlance of the country, and a frequent embodiment of poignant yet rhetorical parliamentary and dharna (sit-in) speeches, its appeal as a surname is inexplicably magnificent and self-evident through the successes of the people that carried it all along in the formative years of Pakistan’s sporting, music, political and economic history. The following parables include the achievements of some of the ul Haqs, which can fortify arguments that claim the unnatural appeal of the name and the rather mystifying consequences of adopting it.
Pakistan’s cricket team was a mere collection of 11 underperforming, discouraged and physically insecure individuals finding it impossible to make ends meet on bouncy, rigid Aussie tracks in 1992. It required a near miracle for them to qualify to the last four teams in the much awaited cricket world cup when a 22-year-old wonder boy from Multan turned the tide in favour of Pakistan and clinched victory in a semi-final game from what were insurmountable circumstances for an inexperienced, young side pitted against the New Zealanders who looked ominous and invincible in their home conditions. His innings set the tone for the world cup final, which Pakistan won and many other games to come. Inzamamul Haq emerged as a national saviour and was to captain the side 11 years later in 2003 when it was again in tatters owing to an ignominious defeat in the 2003 version of the world cup. He ended his career on a low note as a captain but is still remembered as a lumbering giant who stood in the way of fiery bowling attacks like an unbreachable wall. His test and one-day runs were in excess of 20,000 and his one-day runs are the highest to be scored by any Pakistani batsman. Inzamamul Haq is now testing his hand at spreading Islam, a religion that inspired him during the later part of his cricketing career. His nephew, Inam, another ul Haq, was instrumental in elevating Pakistan to the runners up spot in the 2014 Under-19 Cricket World Cup and is currently fancying his call-up for the national team.
Pakistan’s music industry was in no way multi-dimensional to begin with. A few nationalistic, patriotic jingles composed in folk tunes and Mehdi Hasan’s slow, relaxing, melodious ghazal songs were all assets in a typical Pakistani music fan’s library. The late 1980s marked the onslaught of a motley of rock, jazz and pop musicians. Here was a country where nearly half the population considered music was Islamically wrong, dancing to the tunes of the chirpy, iconic Vital Signs and rock-inspired Junoon. But the real transformation came a few years later through Billo in the mid-1990s when a high school teacher from a remote suburban city of Punjab fusionised Noor Jehan-styled Punjabi tappay with Beatles’ spoofed pop tunes of the 1970s. This was an unprecedented transformation that led to many music fusions in years to come and paved the way for musicians whose art did not ascribe completely to any one of the two music categories in fusion. That man was Abrarul Haq, the mighty game changer. Pakistan is arguably home to the region’s best musicians now and Abrar is its indefatigable hero. From Qawwali rock to classic raga and jazz, our musicians are creating innumerable fusions that are equally popular amongst all kinds of subcontinental music junkies.
While the South Asian region was fertile when it came to producing sportsmen and folk artists, none could fathom the idea that this region could also engender an economist of international calibre. Mahboobul Haq was by no means a local luminary and a self-proclaimed economic citadel. His prowess was noticed during his doctoral studies at Cambridge in the 1950s when he impressed one and all, including the Nobel prize winning Indian economist Amartya Sen, with his inquisitiveness and an informal debate that took place between him and Milton Friedman, somebody considered the world’s leading proponent of free market capitalism at the time. Haq disputed some of Friedman’s capitalistic underpinnings, defending the Keynesian school of economics and, according to Tam Dalyell, from then onwards, he was Mahboob, “their eloquent representative”, the pride of the economics faculty at Cambridge. His progress as an economist contributed enormously to the discipline and his prophecies became a beacon of light for development practitioners to come. With Sen and other contemporaries, Haq developed one of the most popular development indicators called the Human Development Index (HDI), which instantly earned him a place in the list of most prominent and celebrated applied economists of all time. Haq served at the World Bank as a chief economist, probably the only Pakistani to do so, and as a finance minister and economic adviser to the government of Pakistan before breathing his last in 1998. Unfortunately, he is seldom remembered for his services and his name is predominantly absent from the academic curriculum in Pakistan but, for economic historians like myself, his ideas can never be trivialised.
Although his political ideology is contested and if he ever truly endeavoured to salvage national pride is a question that can invite much contestation too, Ziaul Haq was by no means unsuccessful and his name, though often denounced, is neither invisible nor conveniently ignored in contemporary politico-historical literature. From hanging the much popular, aggressive statesman Zulfikar Bhutto to sending troops to Afghanistan to fight what is now considered by liberal enlightened Pakistanis a foreign, alienated war, Zia was a dictator considered most repressive and commanding of his times. His coercive Islamic policies and his mysterious death in a plane crash have been a favourite subject of contemporary fiction writers and cinema showmen.
While one must consider it entirely superstitious to have names that are regarded as either omens of guaranteed success or auguries of impending failure, coincidences, if repeated as frequently as they are in this case, can become historically proven facts that are backed by trends developed rather self-autonomously. The ul Haq surname has certainly endowed success on people adopting it but this must not be taken as the only recipe to success. The disclaimer has it that this article or the ‘Haq-success connection’ does not aspire to see more mothers christening their children ul Haq.
The writer is an economics research assistant at the University of Guelph, Canada